


Outsiders

by XenaRaeSykes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Caleb Widogast Deserves Nice Things, Caleb Widogast deserves to be happy, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, POV Alternating, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 16:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20763185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenaRaeSykes/pseuds/XenaRaeSykes
Summary: The mighty nein are a tight-knit group of friends, living in a cosy house in a bustling city. All human alternative universe following a series of weekends in their house. Some plot, but mostly just cute domestic fluff.Title from Against The Current's Outsiders. “We’re misfits, rebels, we’re creeps and freaks, how come they’d got it figured out while we’re lost, waiting to be found? Maybe we need something different now. For every broken bone and every lie you’ve told, every time you’re lost and you can’t find home, this is for the ones who always feel alone.”





	1. Preface

They were an odd, rag-tag bunch of friends.

The house they all lived together in was a tall townhouse in the city centre – a towering two-story building built of pale stone. It was beautiful, with dark roses growing up the porch and pale, freshly painted windowsills. The flowers in the small front garden looked lovingly cared for. It would be easy to mistake the house for a wealthy family home.

The inside of the house was less subtle – the living room was a constant flurry of activity and therefore never completely tidy. A large deep red corner sofa filled half of the room, facing a large, thin TV on the opposite wall. The bold colours continued into the kitchen, where orange walls fanned up from grey countertops. It was a thin galley kitchen but opened at the end into a small utility room filled with a washing machine, a dryer, a dishwasher, and a large fridge-freezer with just enough space for the seven occupants. 

Every room had its own colours, a subtle blue in the dining room where a large wooden table took up most of the space, blue cushions on each of the chairs. The house was enough on a hill that although the front door lead into the ground floor hallway, to access the garden it was necessary to climb the stairs down to the cellar and pass through the room they treated as a games room. The walls here were a darker green, the room not as light as upstairs. In the centre, a table was surrounded by mismatched chairs. A worn green sofa took up one corner facing a TV balanced on a stack of games consoles. A large bookshelf next to it contained a number of both video and board games. The room had two doors, one large glass one leading to the garden, and another wooden one with a handmade sign tacked on.

The second basement room was Caduceus’s. It was a big room with a large door opening out to the garden, a compromise for not having a bathroom on this floor. Jester had insisted on decorating on everyone’s rooms, so the walls were a gentle light green. The bedcovers matched, and so did a large cloud-shaped rug in the middle of the floor. Other colours punctured the green like blossoming flowers: a bookshelf, some scattered cushions and blankets in one corner, and a couple of pink shirts hanging on the wardrobe door.

As the owner of the house, Jester had claimed the middle bedroom on the first floor, wanting to be the centre of the action. She’d painted her walls with a scene of cherry blossoms on a large tree. The pink of the flowers matched the pale pink and blue of the covers on the large canopy bed that occupied the centre of the room, with gauzy material floating around the sides. Aside from a large desk, one side of the room was stacked with canvasses and paints, carefully kept away from the fluffy pink, purple, and blue rug. Beau and Fjord had the rooms either side of hers. Both were simple rooms without too many sentimental items, especially compared to Jester’s. Beau’s room was painted a pale blue, matching bedcovers folded carefully on the bed. Instead of a rug, she had a yoga mat rolled out, held in place with hand weights. Fjord’s room was plainer still, but with a rich green, somewhere between the colours of Caduceus’s room and the games room, painted around the room as a border. He did have a desk, stacked with notes and a computer slowly blinking with a smiley screensaver Jester and Nott had sneaked in to set. 

On the floor above, three more rooms nestled round the largest bathroom. Caleb’s room sat to the far left, decorated with a deep purple paint, each purple surface stacked high with books and notes. The tidiest space was a section of the large wooden desk with a notebook and pen set out purposefully, waiting. Nott had the centre room, the smallest of them all. Her room had one dark blue wall, matching a square rug in the centre of the carpet. A few clothes were strewn on the floor and despite the room being plain, it was comfortable. The final room on the right was Yasha’s, decorated with hundreds of pastel flowers painted by both herself and Jester. The colours matched a striped bedcover and few scattered personal items, an altogether less pink and more calming atmosphere than Jester’s own room.

The house tended to be quieter in the day, but the noise picked up as everyone slowly trickled in for the evening. On a normal weekday, a few people remained home during the day, maybe Jester painting in her room with bubblegum pop music blaring, Caduceus pottering around the garden ignoring his coursework, or Beau working out in her room between shifts. Nott was often in and out throughout the day and evening between her odd jobs and part-time shifts. At 4pm every weeknight, Fjord slammed through the front door, signalling the start of the evening chaos. His usual routine was to shuck off his shoes before collapsing onto the sofa, bag stuffed with notes and plans at his feet. He was often quickly joined by those who were already home, trading stories about their days and bantering tiredly. A large board on the fridge showed who would be in and out of the house and when. It was an easy way to keep track of their varying routines. With Jester and Caduceus regularly in and out of lectures, Beau and Nott working irregular shifts, Yasha and Fjord in a routine of regular work hours, and Caleb working in his lab from 9am until late, it was hard to keep track of who would be around for dinner, let alone to make any other plans.

Despite this, they regularly spent weekends as a group, either in the house or occasionally venturing out. And though they all had other friends and places to be, they had come to find a family in those in this house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just an introduction to what will hopefully be a short series of snapshots into a messy little house of our favourite people! I'd love any comments letting me know what you'd like to see!


	2. Alive (Caleb)

“_I’m alive for a reason. Should have died but I’m breathing. I’m alive for a reason tonight, tonight, tonight. I’ve alive for a reason. I won’t die, I’m believing. Yeah, I’m alive for a reason.”_" - Alive, We The Kings

Caleb returned home from work late on a Friday night to the usual house chaos. He’d gotten caught up in an experiment and only a slightly admonishing call from Caduceus had reminded him that he’d promised to be home by eight pm to eat with everyone. The smell of cooking food washed over him as soon as he opened the front door, as did the sounds of shouting from the kitchen. He walked in to view the domestic scene from the kitchen door; Jester and Caduceus at the sides cooking, squished together in the small space. Beau stood to the side of them, mixing something in a bowl a touch more violently than Caleb thought should be necessary. Fjord shouted something from the dining room, out of Caleb’s view, and he heard Yasha’s softer reply. Nott was the first one to notice him, squeezing her small body past Jester and Caduceus to pull him into a hug.

“You’re home in time!” She trilled, manoeuvring around Beau’s frantic stirring. Music, definitely Jester’s, rang out from the radio tucked into the corner and steam was rising from something cooking on the stove. It pleased Caleb to see Nott looking so happy. In a way he related to, it had taken her some time to settle into the house and he still worried about her on occasion. Despite being the youngest, she had a gleam in her eyes and a set to her thin shoulders that suggested she had seen more of the world than most of them.

It seemed they had dinner very much under control, so Caleb slunk up to his room to put away his things and change into more comfortable clothes. His room, with all its purple and books, never seemed to be tidy but everything had its place in the disorder and Caleb tucked his backpack under the desk. Shuffling out of the dark shirt he’d worn for work, he slipped into a softer dark grey t-shirt and pulled on his slippers. His ‘old man’ slippers, Jester and Nott called them – one of many jokes about him being the oldest in the house.

Downstairs, they settled around the dining room table, talking over the meal about their days and making plans for the weekend. Nott is the only one working, just a short shift at the pizzeria on Saturday afternoon, so they make plans for a chilled weekend spent in together. Now that’s its October and term has truly started for the students, they all have work to get done on the weekends too. Although for Jester this mostly means painting, she does have some essays, and Caduceus is already a little behind on his philosophy work from spending so much time in the garden. Fjord, as a trainee teacher, only has weekends to complete his coursework, and Caleb has already been dragged in to helping his supervisor with marking. They decide to spend Saturday daytime working, so that they can have a games night in the evening. Beau and Yasha offer to spend their time off work completing some housework, much to the delight of their housemates. Caleb knows that he works too many hours for his pay already, but at least he enjoys most of what he does.

They drink a little too much wine with the meal, and retreat to the living room after doing the bare minimum of clearing up. With the TV on low in the background, they bantered and laughed, sharing more ridiculous stories the more they drunk. Caleb snuggled on the sofa with Nott tucked under one arm, cuddled into his side with her fingers curled around her glass. She and Beau were ploughing through bottles of a sweet white wine, both much more used to and comfortable with fast drinks and spirits. Yasha and Jester shared bottles of sparking pink rose, although Caleb had a feeling Jester only chose it for the colour. His own glass was awash with a thick red wine, warming him from the inside. Small sips were enough to distract his brain from trying to process equations and let him focus on the friends in front of him. In the cold long days of his undergraduate degree, living in a flat where he often forgot to top up the electricity meter but it didn’t matter because he spent all his time in the library anyway, he couldn’t have imagined having a group of friends such as these, living around him with such ease.

Despite the wine, Caleb woke early the next day. A strong coffee soon sorted his waning headache and he left a full pot in the kitchen for his friends. It was a nice morning and he could see Caduceus in the garden, so joined him to peacefully drink his coffee and watch as the taller man collected leaves for tea. It was easy to feel peaceful around Caduceus; a welcome change when living with the rest of the group.

By midday, Caleb was sat at his desk, ready to tackle the stack of marking he’d been asked to complete. Having heard his housemates up and awake, he poked a CD into his rattling old CD player and relaxed as the familiar music washed over him. It wasn’t long before Jester was at his door with a little plate of food for him, wrinkling her nose at the loud heavy metal blaring around the room.

“How can you listen to this?” She asked, as always, as she handed him the plate and a large steaming mug of coffee.

“You know it helps me to get less distracted,” Caleb told her, not for the first time. “Thank you for the lunch,”

“I still don’t get it,” She shrugged, making sure to shut the door behind her.

Truthfully, the loud music made it harder to hear the goings-on of the house beneath him and so improved his concentration on the work set before him. He also genuinely enjoyed the music, but he didn’t think Jester and her love of pop music would understand why.

A while later, he put down the last marked paper and flexed his aching fingers. His clock blinked lazily back that it was 6pm and the late afternoon sunlight was filtering into his room at an angle, painting orange around the purple. Stomach rumbling, he stood and stretched, tucking his chair under his desk before wandering downstairs to find his friends. He found Fjord and Jester first, avoiding Jester’s paint-splattered cheeks as she hugged him and accepting a ruffle of Fjord’s knuckles in his hair as he passed them in the hallway. For someone who had never been comfortable with too much physical contact, he had grown used to the constant physical affection in the house.

“Caleb, that _music_ you were listening to,” The emphasis Jester put on ‘music’ made it clear she thought she was using the term lightly, “We could hear the words from Fjord’s bedroom, just sometimes, you know, and what was that song with all the screaming about,” She lowered her voice dramatically, “_Sex_? With those _bad words_? I don’t think that’s very nice, Caleb,”

He had, in fact, been listening to an old Asking Alexandria album and knew the exact song she was talking about.

“Jester, considering we have heard Beauregard actually having sex, on multiple occasions, without making too much of a fuss, I hardly think a song with a few choice words in it is a problem,” He turned to meet her eyes as she begun to reply, “And, considering some of the literature I know you harbour in that pink room of yours, I think you can also hardly talk,”

He raised his eyebrows at her as Fjord gave a hearty chuckle.

“I think he’s got you there, Jes,” He laughed, nudging her affectionately, “Come on let’s go downstairs, I need to go and pick Nott up soon,”

Downstairs, they found Caduceus humming in the kitchen, the smell of something sweet wafting from the oven. Beau and Yasha were sprawled on the sofa in a freshly cleaned living room, idly watching the TV. Jester immediately ran to see what Caduceus was cooking and Fjord and Caleb shared an amused look behind her back.

Once Fjord had left with an order to bring back from the pizzeria, they set about putting a stack of plates in the games room. Caduceus tidied up the last of his baking things from the kitchen, eventually taking some delicious-smelling muffins from the oven. Jester played around with the downstairs speaker, shuffling through a playlist made of their combined tastes. It still featured a lot of her bright pop music, but everyone had added their favourite songs, within reason. Jester had overseen moderating the playlist, vetoing anything too heavy from Caleb and Yasha or twenty-minute-long instrumental pieces from Caduceus. In return, she had been banned from adding anything by Ed Sheeran. Beau had added a whole host of power ballads and Nott had snuck in some irritating internet music that they were still finding to weed out.

Once the music was playing, Fjord and Nott soon returned with the food and they all dug in while arguing over what game to play first. They’d had enough nights like this that certain games were now at the back of the cupboard never to be played again. Jester and Nott liked to cheat, so Monopoly was banned after it caused a week-long argument between the whole house. Many games also had limitations of six players or pairs, which they weren’t able to play with seven people. Finally, they settled on a game called Concepts, and played a good few rounds before Beau and Nott migrated to the cabinet at the back of the room to make drinks. The whole cabinet was stocked with various cocktail ingredients, including every weird and wonderful alcohol under the sun, plus fancy fruity cordials they’d bought in bulk on a whim. A small fridge that the kitchen couldn’t accommodate was tucked into the corner, sparsely stocked with fizzy drinks and fruit juices. None of them actually knew how to make proper cocktails, but they’d gotten quite good at mixing drinks together until they started to taste good. Caduceus always knew which floral flavours to put together, and Jester could always advise on colours so that they looked pretty.

Board game abandoned, they pulled together drinks and started up the ancient Wii to dive right into a Mario kart tournament.

Hours later their driving had not improved.

“I take back every offer of teaching you how to drive,” Fjord threatened Nott as she swerved off another cliff, screaming. There was a stack of paper towels on the floor to her right where Jester had knocked over a drink during a particularly vigorous celebration, and Beau was giggling while adding a ridiculous out-of-context quote from Caleb to the large sheet of paper entitled ‘HOUSE QUOTES’ stuck to the wall. Caleb himself sat to Nott’s left, concentrating on the screen and trying to ignore her screams as he swore at the computer karts in German. The whole evening was chaotic and hilarious, and after he’d passed the Wii remote on to Yasha, Caleb took a few minutes to reflect on just how much he appreciated these people he never expected to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this may be formatted strangely but we'll see! Pls leave me kudos and comments <3


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